Common Core Watchhttp://edexcellence.net/taxonomy/term/15/all
enCPAC's Common Core vaudeville showhttp://edexcellence.net/articles/cpacs-common-core-vaudeville-show
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>CPAC&#039;s Common Core vaudeville show</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/robert-pondiscio">Robert Pondiscio</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">March 03, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I’d like to see Bobby Jindal use a teleprompter the next time he attacks Common Core. I’d like to be reassured he knows how to read.</p>
<p>Jindal continued his full-throated and disingenuous attack on Common Core for the benefit of the base at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week. “The federal government has no right imposing curriculum,” he noted, “when these decisions have always been made by local parents, by teachers, by local leaders.” Needless to say (unless you’re saying it to the governor of Louisiana), Common Core comes nowhere near imposing curriculum; this the cynical Jindal surely knows—or at least would know if he actually took the time to read the standards. </p>
<p>Jindal was the worst offender, but not the only one. At CPAC, Marco Rubio <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/marco-rubio-walks-back-his-own-immigration-reform-plans-at-cpac/%20)">invoked the prospect</a> under Common Core of “a national school board that imposes a national curriculum on the whole country.” What curriculum, Senator? </p>
<p>Even <em>National Review</em>, no bastion of squishy liberalism, cringed at a CPAC panel on the standards, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414473/cpac-panel-common-core-was-not-good-patrick-brennan">describing it</a> as “a badly missed opportunity to educate conservatives about how Common Core has created tension between small-government principles and the priorities of one of the most successful right-of-center movements of the past couple decades, education reform.” As NRO’s Patrick Brennan noted,</p>
<p style="margin-left:40px;">The moderator focused one of her questions on the idea that one of the biggest problems with Common Core has been its “content,” listing sex education, evolution, and U.S. history as flashpoints. This is straight-up misinformation—Common Core is a set of standards that doesn’t have “content” per se, since it’s not a curriculum. And it has nothing to do with sex ed, evolution, and biology, or U.S. history—it contains math and English standards, no more. The panelist who answered this question did nothing to correct the misimpression (though Neal McCluskey of Cato, one of the panelists, mentioned later that, yes, sex ed is not in Common Core).</p>
<p>McCluskey might want to mention that to CPAC straw poll winner Rand Paul, who has yet to walk back an <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/02/3618197/rand-paul-common-core/">embarrassing fundraising email</a> from his political action committee claiming the standards contain “anti-American propaganda [and] revisionist history that ignores the faith of our Founders.” Again, the standards are limited to ELA and math, and the only prescribed texts are foundational documents and a single work of Shakespeare. Is the Declaration of Independence the anti-American propaganda Senator Paul is exercised about?</p>
<p>The CPAC vaudeville show on Common Core is particularly troubling, because when they weren’t demagoguing the standards, the men who would be the GOP’s nominee had much of value to say on education. Jindal’s stance on school choice is admirable and important. Rubio is particularly strong on paths to prosperity other than college. But both men run the risk of looking foolish—and making opposition researchers’ work easy—with an ever-growing list of demonstrably false statements about Common Core that even a cursory glance at the standards would show are simply not true. Other would-be standard bearers like Chris Christie and Scott Walker run the risk of looking equally ridiculous by bending over backwards to repudiate their past support of Common Core. “Their explanations for their flip-flops border on the absurd,” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/political-attacks-on-common-core-are-driven-by-pandering/2015/02/27/bfbf9f80-bad8-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html">wrote Campbell Brown</a> in the <em>Washington Post</em>, neatly summing up the potential price to be paid down the road for the winner of Republicans’ <em>Who Hates Common Core Most?</em></p>
<p>“Education never quite gets the attention it deserves in presidential campaigns, but monster flip-flops surely do. So here’s some advice for people running for office: If you want to campaign against core standards, perhaps you should try having core standards of your own first,” Campbell wrote.</p>
<p>An intellectually honest case can be made against Common Core and the proper role of the federal government in education without resorting to easily checkable misstatements and playing conservative voters for fools. </p>
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</ul>Tue, 03 Mar 2015 16:26:47 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net58131 at http://edexcellence.netCan gifted education survive the Common Core?http://edexcellence.net/articles/can-gifted-education-survive-the-common-core
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Can gifted education survive the Common Core?</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/chester-e-finn-jr">Chester E. Finn, Jr.</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/amber-m-northern-phd">Amber M. Northern, Ph.D.</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">February 20, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>What does the Common Core portend for America’s high-achieving and gifted students? Quite a kerfuffle has erupted in many parts of the country, with boosters of these rigorous new standards <a href="http://www.mvschools.org/Page/44">declaring</a> that they’re plenty sufficient to challenge the ablest pupils and boosters of gifted education <a href="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/10/30/10cc-gifted.h33.html">fretting</a> that this will be used as the latest excuse to do away with already-dwindling opportunities for such children.</p>
<p><a href="http://edexcellence.net/publications/high-flyers.html">Previous research</a> by Fordham <a href="http://cepa.uconn.edu/research/mindthegap/">and others</a> has made clear that the pre-Common Core era has not done well by high achievers in the United States. Almost all the policy attention has been on low achievers, and, in fact, they’ve made <a href="http://edexcellence.net/publications/high-achieving-students-in.html">faster gains</a> on measures such as NAEP than have their high-achieving classmates. Gifted children, in our view, have generally been short-changed in recent years by American public education, even as the country has awakened to their potential contributions to our economic competitiveness and technological edge. It would therefore be a terrible mistake for the new Common Core standards, praiseworthy as we believe they are, to become a justification for even greater neglect.</p>
<p>We asked gifted education expert Jonathan Plucker of the University of Connecticut to help us and others understand what lies ahead, particularly with regard to how the opportunities presented by the Common Core can benefit high-ability students as well as others. In a new brief, <a href="http://edexcellence.net/publications/common-core-and-americas-high-achieving-students"><em>Common Core and America’s High-Achieving Students</em></a>, he addresses these challenges and provides guidance for CCSS-implementing districts and schools as they seek to help these youngsters to reach their learning potential. Four key points emerge:</p>
<ol><li><strong>Common Core is no excuse to ditch gifted services.</strong> One key challenge for the gifted education community is that the CCSS <a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130517/news/705179922/">are indeed</a> being used in some places to justify reducing or even scrapping gifted education services on the grounds that the new universal standards are more challenging than what came before them. No doubt the level of rigor will rise in many states for standards, curriculum, and tests alike. But that doesn’t mean they’ll adequately challenge the <em>most advanced</em> students, girls and boys working well above their grade level. Since the standards represent grade-level learning, curricula and assessments based on them will, by definition, not challenge students who are already surpassing these expectations. It stands to reason, as Plucker makes clear, that schools must still go the extra mile if they are properly to serve those children, some of whom may already be quite a considerable distance down the road to career and college readiness.</li>
<li><strong>State and local officials should get rid of policies that hurt gifted students and strengthen practices that help them.</strong> Many districts and schools have formal or informal policies that limit the learning of advanced pupils. For instance, some states cap how far students can progress within the curriculum in one school year or base kindergarten entrance on age rather than readiness. Some districts have added prohibitions on within-class ability grouping. Many discourage grade-skipping and other forms of acceleration. Such “anti-excellence” policies, often inscribed in state laws and regulations, are nearly always bad for high-ability children and must be excised if the Common Core standards are to be successfully implemented for them, too. On the other hand, the CCSS can facilitate policies that are <a href="http://www.templeton.org/sites/default/files/Nation_Deceived_Both_Volumes.pdf">good for gifted learners</a>, such as <a href="http://gcq.sagepub.com/content/59/1/3.abstract">academic acceleration</a>, which depends on clear expectations of what students should know and be able to do at specific grade levels. If a ten-year-old has already mastered the expectations of fourth grade, why not move her into fifth or sixth, whether completely or just in selected subjects?</li>
<li><strong>Schools must work harder to make differentiation “real.”</strong> Differentiating instruction by students’ ability and/or achievement levels is a skill set that <a href="http://edexcellence.net/articles/differentiated-to-death">few teachers</a> <a href="http://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/is-differentiated-instruction-a-hollow-promise">have mastered</a>. But it won’t get any better if we throw our hands up. The few hours (at most) of annual professional development spent on training teachers to educate gifted students are clearly not sufficient; we need more time and higher-quality training devoted to curricular and instructional differentiation by ability level. Initial teacher preparation programs need to take this challenge seriously in ways that most today do not. Once on the job, teachers also need ample opportunities to plan together to meet the educational needs of their high-ability learners. And principals ought to build this into their schools’ priorities.</li>
<li><strong>Schools should make use of existing high-quality materials that help teachers adapt the Common Core for gifted students</strong>. There are plenty out there! A number of organizations and gifted education experts, including the National Association for Gifted Children, have published <a href="http://www.prufrock.com/A-Teachers-Guide-to-Using-the-Common-Core-State-Standards-With-Gifted-and-Advanced-Learners-in-the-EnglishLanguage-Arts-P1898.aspx">units</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Standards-English-Language-Advanced-Learners/dp/1593639929">lessons</a>, <a href="http://www.prufrock.com/A-Teachers-Guide-to-Using-the-Common-Core-State-Standards-With-Mathematically-Gifted-and-Advanced-Learners-P1899.aspx">tips</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Teachers-Standards-Advanced-Learners-Language/dp/1618211048">guidelines</a> to help educators build on and extend the Core for high-ability children. Let’s get them into the hands of teachers. Likewise, educators of the gifted can serve as key resources for their districts.</li>
</ol><p>The advent of the Common Core standards can and should boost the learning of America’s ablest young learners, not serve as a rationale for denying them opportunities to fulfill their potential. Getting this right calls for re-evaluating and strengthening policies for the gifted, providing more robust programs and services for them, doing what it takes to make differentiation more than a pipe dream, and tapping into resources and educators who can amplify both the standards and their students’ chances of success. It’s a great opportunity to right one of the wrongs perpetrated on U.S. K–12 education during the NCLB era. In so doing, we can brighten the prospects of millions of kids—as well as the entire country’s future.</p>
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</ul>Fri, 20 Feb 2015 19:01:39 +0000mlerner@edexcellence.net58092 at http://edexcellence.netAn ode to Common Core kindergarten standardshttp://edexcellence.net/articles/an-ode-to-common-core-kindergarten-standards
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>An ode to Common Core kindergarten standards</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-ext-author-name field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">J. Richard Gentry</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">February 20, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><em>This post <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/raising-readers-writers-and-spellers/201502/ode-common-core-kindergarten-standards">originally appeared in a slightly different form</a> at </em>Psychology Today<em>.</em></p>
<p>There is much wrong with American kindergartens—but the Common Core State Standards are not to blame. If interpreted correctly, the Common Core standards for literacy enable us to help enhance the kindergarten experience for all kindergarten children—from the underprepared to the most gifted and advanced. Here’s how the literacy standards can be interpreted to support reading and writing in kindergarten without harming any child.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://deyproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/readinginkindergarten_online-1.pdf">recent report</a> by early childhood experts <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/13/report-requiring-kindergartners-to-read-as-common-core-does-may-harm-some/">amplified by the <em>Washington Post</em></a> says that “requiring kindergartners to read—as Common Core does”—may harm children. The position paper, written by early childhood experts, states that many kindergartners aren’t developmentally ready to read. While well intended, both the media report and the recommendations of the early childhood experts lead us down the wrong path.</p>
<p><strong>What’s the Harm in Common Core Kindergarten Literacy Standards?</strong></p>
<p>Both the <em>Washington Post</em> report and the research report, which was issued jointly by the Defending the Early Years and the Alliance for Childhood organizations, call for the kindergarten Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to be withdrawn. Six of the literacy standards are deemed “harmful.” In this post, I un-complicate the six CCSS kindergarten standards and ask you to decide if each of the standards would be an appropriate expectation for your child in kindergarten. You may find that the standards are reasonable and desirable once they are demystified and interpreted correctly.</p>
<p>Not only are my interpretations based on cognitive development and socio-cultural theory, but also on a tried and true research-based strategy for monitoring beginning reading and writing development called Phase Observation. Phase Observation has been used successfully by teachers in Montessori kindergartens, in play-based kindergartens, and even in so-called “academic” kindergartens. It is not geared to a particular pedagogy or ideology. Rather, it hews to the idea that each child’s thinking and likely brain-reading architecture <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/raising-readers-writers-and-spellers/201211/3-r-s-prepare-preschoolers-olympics-or-harvard">goes through five phases</a> in learning to read and write, from non-reading to proficient end-of-first-grade reading and writing. Observable and quantifiable reading and writing skills are byproducts of each phase. The first three phases applied below align with expectations in kindergarten. Two higher phases align with first grade.</p>
<p> To set the context, the <em>Reading Instruction in Kindergarten</em> report reminds us how CCSS standards are supposed to work with a quote from the Common Core website:</p>
<p><em>Students advancing through the grades are expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered in preceding grades.</em></p>
<p>Let’s consider each “harmful” kindergarten standards one by one; I’ll interpret it for you, and you decide if it’s appropriate for your child.</p>
<p align="center">***</p>
<p><strong>Fluency: </strong>CCSS.EDA-LITERACY.RF.K.4</p>
<p><strong>CCSS language:</strong><em> Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.</em></p>
<p><strong>In other words:</strong> At the end of kindergarten, a child is expected to have a repertoire of Level-C or D easy emergent-reader texts that he or she enjoys reading fluently, purposefully, and with understanding. These books are often mastered through memory reading in guided reading lessons for kindergarten developed by New Zealand educator Don Holdaway’s classic “for-with-by model” to simulate “lap reading” with babies and toddlers. This teaching method has been used successfully in kindergartens for decades. The emergent-reader text is first modeled by the teacher <em>for </em>the students, then joyfully read over and over <em>with </em>the students until eventually the easy book is independently read <em>by </em>the students with great joy and confidence.</p>
<p>This memory reading jump-start to later reading proficiency is like using training wheels for riding a bike. Kindergartners who engage in this activity generally point to the words as they read, demonstrating both essential reading skills such as left-to-right orientation of print as well as book concepts like learning what a title is, what an author is, and how one can learn new things with books. The kindergartner who reads this emergent-reader text with purpose and understanding is confident and motivated and, just as importantly, <em>feels </em>like a reader. She gets in the flow and says, “I can read!”</p>
<p>Learning to read emergent-reading texts with purpose and understanding in kindergarten has nothing to do with “long hours of drill and worksheets,” as was erroneously reported in the <em>Reading Instruction in Kindergarten</em> report. Well-trained kindergarten teachers don’t subject children to hours of drill and stacks of worksheets. Your child should not be engaging in that kind of instruction.</p>
<p>Would this kind of reading be harmful to your child?</p>
<p align="center"><strong>***</strong></p>
<p><strong>Phonics and word recognition: </strong>CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.3.B</p>
<p><strong>CCSS language:</strong><em> Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.</em></p>
<p><strong>In other words:</strong> At the end of kindergarten, a child is expected to read on sight some high-frequency long and short vowel words. The kind of text reading that would fit this expectation would be something like the adorable Level-B picture book <em>Cat on the Mat</em>, by Brian Wildsmith. It’s a fun read about animal friends who one by one dare to sit on a mat with a cat until the elephant comes and it’s much too crowded. “Sssppstt!” goes the cat, and everyone scrambles away. The picture book has a six-word sentence on most pages and is engagingly illustrated; kids love it.</p>
<p>A byproduct of reading it is that kids learn a few sight words with the all-important Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) short vowel pattern, as in <em>cat</em>, <em>sat</em>, and <em>mat</em>; it’s arguably the most critical phonics pattern to be mastered for successfully negotiating the beginning reading of English. In best-practice classrooms, children may choose from hundreds of titles of books like this, including engaging fiction and delightful informational texts.</p>
<p>After a well-trained teacher sees that the kindergartner has mastered a repertoire of these Level-B books, she will move him into Level-C and sometimes D books such as Dr. Seuss’s <em>The Cat in the Hat</em>. Most of us remember the first lines: “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold, wet day.” These opening sentences, though simple, expose the reader to multiple CVC short-vowel phonics patterns and word recognition, moving well toward first-grade reading levels. The rhyming pattern books are only one of the choices children may choose from in kindergarten. Titles that meet both of these first two standards include hundreds of books in different genres: <em>Cool Off</em>, <em>I Love Bugs</em>, <em>In the City</em>, <em>My Dream</em>, <em>Playhouse for Monster</em>, <em>Roll Over!</em>, and <em>Spots, Feathers and Curly Tails</em> all give a wide sample of the range of topics.</p>
<p>Would this kind of reading be harmful to your child?</p>
<p align="center">***</p>
<p><strong>Print concepts: </strong>CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.1.D</p>
<p><strong>CCSS language:</strong><em> Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.</em></p>
<p><strong>In other words:</strong> At the end of kindergarten, a child is expected to have begun constructing meaningful emergent-writer texts independently. A byproduct of everyday writing is that, at the end of kindergarten, the kids will recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet—but in reality, they go way beyond that. Kindergarten pieces are largely done in invented spellings sprinkled with a growing repertoire of high-frequency words that the kindergartner learns to spell correctly.</p>
<p>Under the coaching of a well-trained teacher, children in kindergarten write every day. They choose their own topics and enjoy creating extended and deliberate textual compositions in increasing textual complexity. They can think, draw, and write narratives or observations from real life experiences. Eventually, drawings and writing in kindergarten might advance from “one-word stories” such as “Tweety,” a story one kindergartner wrote about his pet parrot, to “phrase stories” such as “My Motor Boat,” and eventually to little pieces expressing real or imagined experiences, information, or opinions. By the end of the year, these pieces may grow in length to compositions of six or more sentences about whatever kindergartners are interested in.</p>
<p>Well-trained kindergarten teachers help kids “publish” the “kid writing” by transcribing it into conventional Standard English, which kindergartners love reading back over and over. This reinforces and strengthens their reading brain circuitry. As kids notice and try to figure out spelling, grammatical usage, punctuation, and capitalization—and teachers scaffold and give them positive feedback—they learn letters and gain exposure to many conventional Standard English skills</p>
<p>Would this kind of reading be harmful to your child?</p>
<p align="center">***</p>
<p><strong>Integration of knowledge and ideas: </strong>CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.9</p>
<p><strong>CCSS language:</strong><em> With prompting and support, identify basic similarities in the differences between two texts on the same topic. (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions, or procedures).</em></p>
<p><strong>In other words:</strong> At the end of kindergarten, a child is expected to be able to identify basic similarities in the differences between two texts, such as <em>Cat on the Mat</em> by Brian Wildsmith and <em>The Cat in the Hat</em> by Dr. Seuss. Kindergartens compare and contrast the pictures and stories, then tell you which one they like best and why. One kindergartner told me that both books had a cat, but he liked the Dr. Seuss book best because it reminded him of a time he had to find something to do on a rainy day. (“Like I could read my favorite books!” he said.)</p>
<p>Would this kind of reading be harmful to your child?</p>
<p align="center"><strong>***</strong></p>
<p><strong>Research to build and present knowledge: </strong>CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.7</p>
<p><strong>CCSS language:</strong><em> Participate in shared research and writing projects.</em></p>
<p><strong>In other words:</strong> At the end of kindergarten, a child is expected to have participated in many shared research and writing projects. For example, your child might plant seeds and keep records of tending them by drawing and labeling. He might watch and record in pictures and labels the cycle of tadpoles turning into frogs, the metamorphosis of butterflies, the hatching of baby chicks, or the goings-on in an ant farm. She might tend to a live bunny in the classroom and report on the everyday happenings with the pet. She might draw pictures and report in writing on how the class guinea pig looks, feels, smells, eats, and sounds. She might visit parks and streams and draw pictures and write about the experience; she could research the kinds of trees or flowers that were found in the parks and take field notes with sketches and labels. Much of this work may be done at kindergarten play-centers; the research is reported in phase-appropriate writing with increasing textual complexity, as described in the standards detailed above.</p>
<p>Would this kind of reading be harmful to your child?</p>
<p><strong>Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: </strong>CCSS.ELA.LITERACY.W.K.4.B</p>
<p><strong>CCSS language:</strong><em> Use the most frequently occurring inflections and affixes (e.g., -ed, -s, re-, un-, pre-, -ful, -less) as to cue the meaning of an unknown word.</em></p>
<p><strong>In other words:</strong> At the end of kindergarten, your child should acquire many new words and use them in his or her speech. Most of us who spend a lot of time listening and talking to kindergarteners know that they communicate quite effectively using the inflections and affixes listed above in everyday vernacular, regardless of their dialects. They use them for varying verb tenses and making words plural (though, depending on their dialect, they may not yet use all with conventional Standard English usage and spelling). We make reasonable accommodations for bilingual children. At the end of kindergarten, and with the exception of some bilinguals who have had too little experience with English, most can use word parts such as the ones listed above in their speech. They express what they are thank<strong>ful</strong> for at Thanksgiving, how to <strong>un</strong>screw the jar of peanut butter, <strong>re</strong>cap the apple juice; alternatively, they can show you that the art-center floor is spot<strong>less</strong> after they cleaned it up. At the end of kindergarten, they can still tell you about their experiences in <strong>pre</strong>school, if they were fortunate enough to attend one.</p>
<p>Should your child be expected to use this kind of rigorous English vocabulary?</p>
<p>Do <em>any</em> of the above standards make you feel that “we have hurried the reading process,” as reported in the <em>Reading Instruction in Kindergarten</em> report?</p>
<p><strong>Problems with American Kindergarten and How to Fix It</strong></p>
<p>My intent is not to denigrate this report, its authors, or their affiliated organizations. These are wonderful groups, and the report brings many serious problems in American kindergarten to light. I must agree with the following bulleted items detailed in the publication, which I have encountered all across America:</p>
<ul><li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">Some children are having harmful experiences in kindergarten.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">Districts in affluent communities spend about twice as much per student as the lowest-spending districts.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">Some districts are causing problems by shoving a first-grade curriculum into kindergarten.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">Children without high-quality preschool and without experience with literacy at home enter kindergarten not ready for success with reading.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">Children in low-quality kindergartens should not be required to meet the needs of low-quality schools for standardized tests.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">There is too much standardized testing in kindergarten.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">Kindergarten report cards are problematic in some districts.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">There is not enough formative assessment during the learning process by well-trained teachers in kindergarten.</li>
<li style="margin-left: 28.5pt;">Many kindergarten teachers are not well prepared to teach English language arts.</li>
</ul><p>I do not dismiss any of these grievances. I’m simply saying that the Common Core State Standards are not the problem, and rewriting or abandoning the standards is not the solution. We don’t need to start over from scratch; the current CCSS standards can be interpreted cogently and specifically and can help to provide expanded opportunity for all kindergartners. The adoption of the standards do not “falsely imply that having children achieve these standards will overcome the impact of poverty on development and learning,” as stated in the report. They only spotlight a problem: Poor children in low-quality schools will never move toward inclusive prosperity unless they learn to read and write. The journey starts in high-quality preschools and kindergarten, unless parents start little ones on the journey at home.</p>
<p>If you find these interpretations of Common Core standards for kindergarten helpful, email the link or copy the post and give it to your child’s principal and kindergarten teacher.</p>
<p><em>J. Richard Gentry earned his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill in elementary education and his Ph.D. in reading education from the University of Virginia. He is an education consultant and author of books for parents and teachers,</em> <em>including </em>Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write—From Baby to Age 7.</p>
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</ul>Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:28:24 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net58090 at http://edexcellence.netThe central problem with Jason Riley's argumenthttp://edexcellence.net/articles/the-central-problem-with-jason-rileys-argument
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>The central problem with Jason Riley&#039;s argument</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/michael-j-petrilli">Michael J. Petrilli</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">February 18, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">We at Fordham are big fans of Jason Riley, a </span><em style="line-height: 1.538em;">Wall Street Journal</em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> columnist who just joined the team at the Manhattan Institute. So we were doubly disappointed to see him parrot the Russ Whitehurst/Tom Loveless argument that “</span><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/jason-riley-common-core-has-a-central-problem-1424216327?cb=logged0.4340823118109256" style="line-height: 1.538em;">standards don’t matter</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">.”</span></p>
<p>Of course they don’t—in isolation. On their own, content standards are just words on paper (or, as Rick Hess likes to say, akin to restaurants’ mission statements). <a href="http://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/common-core-watch/back-to-basics-do-standards-matter">We’ve acknowledged as much for years</a>.</p>
<p>The question is whether they can spark <a href="http://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/flypaper/hell-yes-we-want-instructional-change-don%E2%80%99t-you">instructional change</a>. That’s no sure thing; as we’ve argued forever, it takes a ton of hard work at the state and local levels. First, it requires developing tests that assess the full range of the standards, including the challenging ones; this is something that arguably no state save for Massachusetts actually did in the pre-Common Core era. Second, it means investing in high-quality curricular materials and allowing time for teachers to master them. (No, the curricular materials need not be—and should not be—“national.” But surely we can do better than the schlock that textbook companies have been peddling for years.)</p>
<p>This is where Riley’s argument falls apart. He quotes Whitehurst saying that teachers are what matter most—and it’s true that researchers have long found big differences in teacher effectiveness both within schools and across schools. But there’s no law of physics stating that such huge differences are inevitable. It’s arguably America’s uneven, amateurish approach to curriculum that explains the big variance in teachers from one classroom to the next.</p>
<p>Whitehurst himself has demonstrated that the effect sizes on student outcomes of choosing a good curriculum dwarf those of charter schools, preschool programs, and reconstituting the teacher workforce. “<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2009/10/14-curriculum-whitehurst">Leaving curriculum reform off the table or giving it a very small place makes no sense</a>,” he observed not long ago. Or as Robert Pondiscio has <a href="http://edexcellence.net/articles/not-teacher-quality-but-quality-teaching">argued</a>:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;"><em>The difference is not who the teacher is, but what the teacher does. And what the teacher does has to be learned, practiced, and mastered by the teachers we have, not the teachers we wished we had. There’s a tendency among education reformers and economists who study data on teacher effectiveness to say, “See, teacher effectiveness varies dramatically from one teacher to another, even in the same school. Weed out the ineffective ones!” The more effective approach would be to look at the same data and say, “What might help to elevate the less effective teachers? What might help the ordinary to become good, and the good become great?”</em></p>
<p>Will states and local districts do the difficult tasks to fulfill the promise of Common Core’s higher standards? The honest answer is that some will and some won’t. Some will adopt great new tests; some won’t. Some will choose fantastic new curricula; some won’t. Just like all meaningful change, Common Core is not self-implementing. We have to get the details right and stay at it over time.</p>
<p>But there are reasons to be hopeful on the testing and curriculum fronts; after all of this effort and all of this investment, it would be nuts to abort this promising reform just as it’s coming to fruition.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best argument for Common Core is that the new standards put curriculum and instruction “in play” in a way that is unprecedented in the reform era. In short, standards matter if for no other reason than they provide fuel and focus to efforts to improve curriculum and instruction. </p>
<p>We didn’t know whether school choice would work before we tried it; so it is with the Common Core. So let’s keep at it. We’ll see the results, one way or the other, soon enough.</p>
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</ul>Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:53:00 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net58079 at http://edexcellence.netIs Common Core too hard for kindergarten?http://edexcellence.net/articles/is-common-core-too-hard-for-kindergarten
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Is Common Core too hard for kindergarten?</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/robert-pondiscio">Robert Pondiscio</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">February 11, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p style="text-align: right;"><img src="http://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/5271245204_d863899346_b.jpg" style="line-height: 1.538em; width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>A report last month from a pair of advocacy organizations, the Alliance for Childhood and Defending the Early Years, argued that “there is a widespread belief that teaching children to read early will help them be better readers in the long-run,” but that there is “no scientific evidence that this is so.” The <em>Washington Post</em> and its Common Core-averse education blogger, Valerie Strauss, have been particularly aggressive in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/13/report-requiring-kindergartners-to-read-as-common-core-does-may-harm-some/">highlighting this report</a> and running pieces from both <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/28/mom-common-core-wants-kids-to-develop-reading-skills-at-the-same-pace-my-daughters-didnt/">parents</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-pushed-my-pre-k-students-toward-reading-and-i-feel-guilty-about-it/2015/01/23/a78561d0-a0b5-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html">teachers</a> arguing that “forcing some kids to read before they are ready could be harmful.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.slc.edu/cdi/media/pdf/ReadinginKindergartenreport.pdf">report</a>, titled <em>Reading in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose</em> sounds an alarm over a perceived shift “from play-based, experiential approaches to more academic approaches” in early-childhood classrooms starting in the 1980s. “Under the Common Core State Standards (CCSS),” the authors claim, “the snowball has escalated into an avalanche which threatens to destroy appropriate and effective approaches to early education.”</p>
<p>The authors make much of the fact that no one involved with writing the standards was a K–3 teacher or early-childhood professional. The more important issue, however, isn’t who wrote it, but whether Common Core is beyond the abilities of five-year-olds or the expectations we should have for them. The short answer, I think, is “no.” But let’s look at some of the report’s specific complaints.</p>
<p><strong>Expecting kindergarteners to read is “developmentally inappropriate.” </strong></p>
<p>The much-used phrase “developmentally appropriate” (or inappropriate) is not as scientifically clear-cut as many suppose. There’s little evidence to suggest that a child’s readiness to learn occurs in the discrete, stair-step phases that Piaget theorized about long ago. As the respected cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham <a href="http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/what-is-developmentally-appropriate">points out</a>, “children's cognition is fairly variable <em>day to day</em>, even when the same child tries the same task.” When Common Core critics say, “This is developmentally inappropriate,” however, what they usually seem to mean is, “This is too hard.” “Stage theory” is not a useful guide for setting standards or planning lessons. For teachers, the question is seldom “Is this developmentally appropriate?” The far better question is, “What do I want kids to learn?” and “How can I present this in a way that makes sense to small children?”</p>
<p><strong>Common Core is too hard for kindergarten.</strong></p>
<p>There’s no reason to think that Common Core’s literacy benchmarks are too hard for kindergarten. According to the <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001035.pdf">National Center for Education Statistics</a>, two out of three kindergarteners already recognize the letters of the alphabet, both in upper and lower cases, when they <em>enter </em>kindergarten—and that’s one of the “foundational skills” expected under Common Core. (Parents would surely be alarmed if, by the end of kindergarten, their kids did <em>not</em> know their ABCs.) A similar number (61 percent) come into kindergarten with two or more Common Core “print concepts” under their cognitive belts, such as knowing that English text is read from left to right and from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. Most of the individual kindergarten reading standards say that small children should be able to demonstrate skills such as answering questions or retelling key details about a story “with prompting and support.” When you ask your child a question such as “What do you think will happen next?” while reading out loud from <em>Goodnight Moon</em> or <em>Make Way for Ducklings</em>, that’s offering “prompting and support.” There’s no suggestion in Common Core that children should meet these standards as independent readers during or at the end of kindergarten.</p>
<p><strong>No research documents long-term gains from learning to read in kindergarten.</strong></p>
<p>This is deeply misleading at best and arguably false. One <a href="http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/scholasticprofessional/authors/pdfs/Kindergarten_Literacy_sample_pages.pdf">longitudinal study</a> published in 1985 followed four thousand students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. One-third of them had been taught to read in kindergarten; the rest were not. The kindergarten readers were stronger readers as high school seniors—a finding that “held up across districts and schools, as well as ethnic, gender and social class groups.” That study’s authors declared that “[a]ny school district with a policy that does not support kindergarten reading should be ready to present new and compelling reasons to explain why not.” To be clear, this was a correlational study—there were (for obvious reasons) no students randomly assigned to a control group and denied kindergarten literacy instruction. But the overwhelming weight of such correlational studies builds a compelling case in favor of early reading instruction.</p>
<p>Indeed, the strongest argument in favor of reading by the end of kindergarten and Common Core’s vision for early literacy is simply to ensure that children—especially the disadvantaged among them—don’t get sucked into the vortex of academic distress associated with early reading failure. Here the data are clear, unambiguous, and deeply sobering. Nearly 90 percent of struggling first graders are <a href="http://www.readingrockets.org/article/waiting-rarely-works-late-bloomers-usually-just-wilt">still struggling in fourth grade</a>; three out of four struggling third-grade readers are <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED533115.pdf">still struggling in ninth grade</a>; and one in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade <a href="http://www.aecf.org/resources/double-jeopardy/">do not graduate from high school on time</a>—a rate four times greater than for proficient readers.</p>
<p><strong>Play-based kindergartens better prepare children to become fluent readers. </strong></p>
<p>Nothing in Common Core—not one blessed thing—precludes schools and teachers from creating safe, warm, nurturing classrooms that are play-based, engaging, and cognitively enriching. If teachers are turning their kindergarten classrooms into joyless grinding mills and claiming they are forced to do so under Common Core (as the report’s authors allege), something has clearly gone wrong. Common Core demands no such thing, and research as well as good sense supports exposing children to early reading concepts through games and songs. The authors of <em>Little to Gain</em> would do early-childhood education a considerable service if instead they pushed aggressively for teacher education and professional development that enabled more teachers to meet Common Core benchmarks with the teaching techniques they favor, not demand that we “withdraw kindergarten standards from the Common Core so that they can be rethought along developmental lines.” There’s simply no reason to do so. Tim Shanahan of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who helped write the standards and chaired a federal review panel that examined the research undergirding them, <a href="http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/2015/01/twogroups-that-are-strong-advocates-in.html">noted emphatically</a> that “[t]here are not now, and there never have been data showing any damage to kids from early language or literacy learning.”</p>
<p><strong>Common Core sets unrealistic reading goals and uses inappropriate methods to accomplish them. </strong></p>
<p>This is simply incorrect. The standards describe a range of skills that children are expected to demonstrate by the end of kindergarten. They are silent on the instructional methods that schools and teachers employ to meet those benchmarks. I had the opportunity to participate in a <a href="http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201501300900">thoughtful, hour-long discussion</a> of the report with Nancy Carlsson-Paige, one of the report’s authors, on KQED’s program <em>Forum</em> last month. But the star of the segment was Colleen Rau, a reading intervention specialist in the Oakland school district. While she shared some of Carlsson-Paige’s concerns around implementation pressures (mine too), she was quick to note that when she taught kindergarten eight years ago, “there was this same expectation around students learning all of their letters, sounds, and sight words and beginning to read early emergent text. That expectation,” she pointed out, “has been around far longer than Common Core.”</p>
<p><strong>Children learn through playful, hands-on experiences with materials, the natural world, and engaging, caring adults. </strong></p>
<p>Here the authors of the report come dangerously close to substituting philosophy for evidence and sound practice. We’ve all heard and read stories from friends and others about the kid who didn’t read until “something clicked” and she was off and running. As seductive as these anecdotes are, that is all they are—anecdotes. There’s <a href="http://www.readingrockets.org/article/waiting-rarely-works-late-bloomers-usually-just-wilt">no empirical support</a> for the idea that reading develops naturally; “late bloomers” are rare. If the report’s message is that children should <em>not </em>be reading by the end of kindergarten, or that they will read when they’re darned good and ready, it’s perilously close to reckless. Most kids can already read simple texts by the end of kindergarten. And those who struggle early tend to continue to struggle—both in school and in life. The authors are absolutely correct that telling stories, reading from picture books, singing songs, reciting poems, activity centers, and imaginative play all help build literacy skills. That’s why <em>none</em> of those are discouraged by Common Core.</p>
<p><strong>The Bottom Line</strong></p>
<p>Of more than ninety specific Common Core kindergarten standards in literacy and math, the report takes issue with exactly one, which says that kindergarteners should be able to “[r]ead emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.” We’re not talking about six-year-olds reading Proust or <em>Of Mice and Men</em>. Keep in mind, too, that it’s the end of kindergarten that particular standard applies to. Common Core defines emergent-reader texts as “consisting of short sentences comprised of learned sight words and CVC [consonant vowel consonant] words.” Think “I am Sam and I am an ant,” not “To him who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms.” There is nothing “developmentally inappropriate” about this standard, which many children—perhaps most—already meet. Our concern should be with those who don’t meet this standard, but can and should be put on a path to reading readiness before they fall forever behind.</p>
<p>In the final analysis, I share Carlsson-Paige’s concern about turning kindergarten into an academic pressure cooker. No one wants that; it is a recipe for disengagement and failure. But it’s simply incorrect to suggest that we can’t have both play-based kindergarten and language-rich kindergarten. It’s what the best kindergarten teachers have always done. Where Carlsson-Paige loses me, however, and where “Little to Gain” strikes me as not just wrong and misleading but nearly reckless, is in its suggestion that reading short “emergent text” sentences by the end of kindergarten is potentially harmful. This is clearly not the case.</p>
<p>The clear thrust of Common Core in kindergarten is to ensure that kids enter first grade ready for success—recognizing letters, understanding the sounds they represent, and knowing that words are collections of these letter-sized sounds. All of this is in the service of helping children understand how print represents language. That’s what kindergarten literacy looks like under Common Core. Given how early the trajectory is set, it should make us very, very nervous to suggest that kindergarten reading is too much, too soon. </p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 13.8420000076294px; text-align: right;">photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/remus/5271245204/in/photolist-eaijHW-cT2fSy-92Nvy1-ceaK4q-7kCZbv-9Y3b1A-6YVrJ2-65U1qd-9Y3ikJ-89xbzf-77P4ZJ-9Y3nm7-85MggN-cT2gfC-bHotnB-diS7Ky-diS6tU-bHotEr-6T3jje-6VqMdJ-5SqUNQ-6WZpwp-85d386-6CpLqT-butGfS-bHotFT-bHotFi-butGfE-bHotFt-bHotEX-butGe3-butGdQ-butGdb-bHotDH-butGcu-bHotD8-butGcQ-bHotCp-bHotC8-bHotBT-bHotBF-butGaU-cVmkAd-6fBUt-fGH8UP-cVmn49-4bVk3q-cVmjYd-cVmjkC-cVmnnb">Remus Pereni</a> </span><span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 13.8420000076294px; text-align: right;">via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a></span></p>
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</ul>Wed, 11 Feb 2015 19:56:01 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net58060 at http://edexcellence.netDoug Lemov reveals his secretshttp://edexcellence.net/articles/doug-lemov-reveals-his-secrets
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Doug Lemov reveals his secrets</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/kathleen-porter-magee">Kathleen Porter-Magee</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">February 11, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><em>Editor's note: These remarks were delivered as an introduction to <a href="http://edexcellence.net/events/doug-lemov-on-teach-like-a-champion-20">Doug Lemov's February 10 panel discussion</a> at the Fordham Institute.</em></p>
<p>It is a genuine honor and pleasure to be here with you today and to have the opportunity to introduce Doug Lemov. Doug is a man whose humility knows no bounds—indeed, he attributes his own success with <em>Teach Like a Champion </em>to his own <em>limitations</em> as a teacher. I’ve heard him more than once explain—earnestly and sincerely—that the reason he started filming and analyzing videos of great teachers in action was because he was such an “average” teacher, and he wanted to learn the magic of the champion teachers around him.</p>
<p>And that humility courses through all of his work, including his writing.</p>
<p>Yet his achievements are remarkable. He and his colleagues at Uncommon Schools consistently achieve at the highest levels on state tests. And Doug’s work identifying what “champion” teachers do that drives their results has been nothing short of transformational.</p>
<p>You might even say the work Doug and his team does is magic.</p>
<p>And so I thought it was fitting, before we launched into the weeds of how to improve teacher practice—a subject that is near and dear to my heart—to talk about the secrets of great magicians.</p>
<p>A few years ago, Teller—the silent partner of the famed Penn and Teller duo—wrote <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teller-reveals-his-secrets-100744801/?all&amp;no-ist">a piece for <em>Smithsonian</em> magazine</a> in which he revealed his secrets. In it, Teller shares three lessons that I think are worth repeating.</p>
<p><strong>The first lesson is that technology, no matter how sophisticated, is no replacement for hard work.</strong></p>
<p>A little-known fact is that neuroscientists are obsessed with magic. Teller is a frequent keynote speaker at research conferences, and he’s often asked to share his magic secrets. What’s funny, though, is that even after he reveals his secrets—which I will share with you in a minute—the scientists can’t help but share information about new, flashy technology that, they’re sure, will make him a better magician.</p>
<p>Teller is less convinced. Magicians have been conducting their own experiments on human perception for hundreds of years, and there is no technological substitute for the learning gleaned from those lessons. As an example, Teller explains that he conducted one such experiment on a group of Cub Scouts when he was eleven. His hypothesis—that nobody would see him sneak a fishbowl under a shawl—proved false, and the scouts “pelted [him] with hard candy.”</p>
<p>He goes on to say, “If I could have avoided those welts by visiting an MRI lab, I surely would have.”</p>
<p>Instead, the lessons he learned were hard-won. They came both from hours of painstaking—sometimes humiliating—work and from the learning that work provided.</p>
<p><strong>The second lesson is that, for a trick to be worth it, planning it needs to take more time than any non-magician would think sane.</strong></p>
<p>Back in the early days of their career, Penn and Teller, appeared on David Letterman’s show and performed what seemed like a simple trick: They made five hundred live cockroaches appear from beneath a seemingly empty top hat that was sitting on top of Letterman’s desk.</p>
<p>But planning that seemingly simple, seconds-long trick took weeks. Penn and Teller hired an entomologist who bred slow-moving, camera-friendly cockroaches. (Because normal roaches run at the first sight of light.) The entomologist taught Penn and Teller to pick up the bugs without, as Teller describes it, “screaming like preadolescent girls.” Then they built a secret compartment made out of one of the few materials that roaches <em>can’t</em> cling to. And then they worked out a devious sleight-of-hand routine for sneaking the compartment into the hat so that nobody could see it.</p>
<p>Sounds like a lot of work—but not to magicians who realize that that’s the level of intentionality it takes to be great.</p>
<p><strong>Teller’s third lesson is that great magic comes not from raw talent or some heroic craft, but rather from the careful mastery of a few simple but important tools.</strong></p>
<p>Teller shares seven of those tools. They include exploiting pattern recognition, understanding some basic tenets of human psychology (i.e., if you’re involved in the trick, you’re more likely to believe it), and combining two tricks to hide critical sleights of hand.</p>
<p>Each of those secrets is simple, but mastering them takes time, patience, and more practice than most people are willing to put in.</p>
<p>While there’s a ton of rich and important material in <em>Teach Like a Champion</em>, the broad takeaways of the book are really that simple. In essence, Doug not only tells us, but actually <em>shows </em>us, that magical teaching comes down to three things:</p>
<ol><li>Learning basic techniques and honing them through hard work, self-reflection, and ongoing practice.</li>
<li>Being intentional about <em>everything </em>you do during your lessons.</li>
<li>Spending more time planning than most people think makes any sense.</li>
</ol><p>And as most champion teachers have learned far too many times, anything less may well leave welts.</p>
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</ul>Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:38:53 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net58058 at http://edexcellence.netPublic funding, parent choice, and the values of the majorityhttp://edexcellence.net/articles/public-funding-parent-choice-and-the-values-of-the-majority
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Public funding, parent choice, and the values of the majority</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/kathleen-porter-magee">Kathleen Porter-Magee</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 28, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="font-size: 13.0080003738403px; line-height: 1.538em;">Last week, in his State of the State address, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo put the weight of his office behind </span><a href="http://nypost.com/2015/01/21/cuomo-proposes-sweeping-education-reforms" style="font-size: 13.0080003738403px; line-height: 1.538em;">an education tax credit</a><span style="font-size: 13.0080003738403px; line-height: 1.538em;">—a bill that would provide dollar-for-dollar tax relief to both individuals and businesses who donated money to either public schools or to scholarship funds that aid needy students in private and parochial schools.</span></p>
<p>This is an idea I have a personal stake in. As the superintendent of six Catholic schools in New York City, I know how financially challenging it is to keep these schools open and what a difference the donations from this tax credit would make in supporting the important work of our teachers and students.</p>
<p>Of course, for some people the idea of a public policy that provides any tax relief for supporters of religious schools is a third rail. They conjure up a vision of religion being forced on children or of the American ideal of “education for democracy” withering away.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13.0080003738403px; line-height: 1.538em;">But that not only represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the roots of American public education, it also ignores the reality of the debate. Rather than a choice between keeping religion in or out of our schools, it is really a debate about whether we should have a single state-sanctioned perspective on the values taught in schools or a plurality of approaches from which parents can choose. </span></p>
<p><strong>Common Schools, Majority Values</strong></p>
<p>An uncomfortable reality for critics of school choice is that one of the drivers of the “common school” movement was the belief that, in order to preserve our democracy, all children should be taught the same set of values and beliefs. At the time, while those values may have been “nonsectarian,” they were decidedly religious. Indeed, the “father” of the common schools movement, Horace Mann, freely supported teaching the Bible and Christian virtues in school. His push for “nonsectarian” schools was <em>not</em> a push to remove religion from schools, but rather was meant to teach Christian values and virtues independent of a particular Protestant “sect.” Mann argued,“[O]ur system earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its morals on the basis of religion; it welcomes the religion of the Bible; and, in receiving the Bible, it allows it to do what it is allowed to do in no other system.”</p>
<p>Of course, the Bible Mann supported was the King James version, an explicitly Protestant translation—a detail that is crucial for understanding how religion and values were integrated into our education system. Namely, as a way of reinforcing and upholding the majoritarian religious views of the age and of limiting the influence of other religions or immigrant groups (an explicit goal of men like Mann and his fellow members of the elite Whig party).</p>
<p><strong>Limiting Choice to Force Values</strong></p>
<p>As common schools grew, the push to limit the influence of Catholics and other immigrant groups was strong. And perhaps exactly because education can have such broad influence over children’s beliefs and values, schools became a key battleground in the effort to curtail the influence of minority voices in America. States began to pass compulsory education laws that required all students to attend schools, but worked to deny private and parochial schools of the public resources they would need to grow and thrive. In Oregon, legislators went even further and passed a law that forced all students to attend <em>public</em> schools, regardless of whether families could afford to pay private school tuition.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the Oregon law in the now-famous <em>Pierce v. the Society of Sisters</em> case where the majority (rightly) decided that the law “unreasonably interfere[d] with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.”</p>
<p><em>Pierce </em>was a landmark case that effectively staved off a nationwide attempt to shut down “sectarian”religious schools (chief among them Catholic schools). But the push to starve private and parochial schools continued. By the end of the nineteenth century, most states had adopted “Blaine Amendments” to their constitutions which explicitly prevented private schools from receiving the kind of public funding that would gives all parents real options—and schools real intellectual diversity. (A similar amendment was proposed by U.S. Speaker of the House, James Blaine, but while it passed in the House, it lost by just four votes in the Senate.)</p>
<p><strong>Catholic Schools and Democratic Values</strong></p>
<p>As society has become less Protestant and more secular, the values taught in public schools have followed suit. But the outcome remains the same: an environment that works against the choices of parents and in favor of a single system of schools that uphold and reinforce the beliefs of the majority—and one where only parents who have the necessary means are able to choose schools that teach different, sometimes religious, values and beliefs.</p>
<p>Catholic schools, then as now, stand for the principle that parents should be able to chose an educational environment for their child that stands apart from the majority religious views of the time while embracing their vital civic role in their community.</p>
<p>What’s more, if the purpose of public education is to prepare citizens to be active participants in our democracy, then <a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/review-lost-classroom-lost-community">ensuring a vibrant parochial school system should be a high priority</a>. Indeed, Catholic school students graduate at higher rates, they have higher college going rates; after college they tend to have more stable marriages, vote at higher rates, and so on.</p>
<p>The reality is that, without public support, poor parents have no option but to accept the majority values and views for the education of their children. And that means that we are effectively doing the same thing that the Oregon legislature did: We are deliberately starving an alternative system of schools under the false flag of “community cohesion.” Standing up for Governor Cuomo’s education tax credit isn’t just standing up for a greater investment in education for all students, it’s standing up for a broader conception of community, one that allows parents to be their children’s first teachers.</p>
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</ul>Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:24:59 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57992 at http://edexcellence.netAdvice to Republican leaders: Don't back down on high education standardshttp://edexcellence.net/articles/advice-to-republican-leaders-dont-back-down-on-high-education-standards
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Advice to Republican leaders: Don&#039;t back down on high education standards</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-ext-author-name field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mary Scott Hunter</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 27, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><em>Editor's note: This post was <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/26/advice-to-republican-leaders-dont-back-down-on-high-education-standards/">originally published in a slightly different form</a> on the Daily Caller.</em></p>
<p>There is a message for Republicans in the results from the last several election cycles: We must continue to expand our base to remain the party of leadership. The platform of “No” is no longer enough. We need leaders who are able to articulate policies of upward mobility, accountability, and prudent governance.</p>
<p>Too often we have let the poles of our party dictate the agenda, dismissing out of hand those candidates who show the conviction to stand up for sensible ideas. Nowhere is this reality more evident than in the public debate over the Common Core education standards. Despite the fact that this important education initiative remains a state-led effort; despite the fact most parents support high academic standards; and despite the fact the standards are working, a small but vocal faction of the party would have voters and candidates believe it is political treason to support them.</p>
<p>No sooner had former Governors Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee announced they would consider running for president than were critics astir about how support for the Common Core would ruin their credibility with Republican voters. I have encouraged both men, as I would any other candidates who will toss their hats in the ring, not to shy away from the standards, as others have.</p>
<p>When I ran for reelection to the Alabama Board of Education last year, opponents made similar claims. Support for the Common Core, they said, would be a purity test of true conservatism. Instead of focusing on legitimate questions about the value of ensuring all public school students are held to rigorous expectations, the attacks got personal—and at times downright aggressive.</p>
<p>Yet those warnings weren’t fulfilled when voters went to the polls. I was honored to be reelected as a proud Republican to serve the people of Alabama—one of the most ardently conservative states in the union—despite being unfairly linked to President Obama and even accused of carrying the “Democrat and liberal standard.”</p>
<p>My race wasn’t a glitch, either. Across the country, at least a dozen governors who publicly endorsed the Common Core won reelection, most by healthy margins. In only four states did Common Core play a decisive role in the midterms; in three of those, the candidates who supported the standards won. Considering all the negative rhetoric, one might ask how. As I see it, families fundamentally support strong education standards and greater accountability in our classrooms, regardless of what label you put on it.</p>
<p>Moreover, conservative Americans have every reason to rally behind the Common Core standards, or their state’s version of them. The notion of holding our children to higher standards is an inherently conservative ideal. Republicans were key drivers of the bipartisan effort to establish common academic standards. When the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State Schools Officers announced the launch of the state-led standards development process in 2009, Republican governors from twenty states played major roles. They did so because they knew that tomorrow’s leaders must be able to compete and succeed in an increasingly complex world.</p>
<p>In Alabama, the standards were voluntarily adopted after being thoroughly vetted by local experts and educators. I joined my fellow Board of Education members in voting to affirm the standards in 2011. I did so confident that these academic benchmarks, which we have subsequently added to and modified, would be the right platform for our educators to develop high-quality, engaging lessons that challenge our students.</p>
<p>Local control over textbooks, lesson plans, and homework assignments is protected and preserved for teachers and schools who use the standards, both in Alabama and in every state that uses them. Claims that they are a national curriculum are either disingenuous or misinformed. That means if a math worksheet or homework problem is confusing, local school boards and educators can fix it because there are no requirements tying them to it.</p>
<p>Likewise, under Common Core, teachers are encouraged to find their own most effective teaching methods and curricula. And because the standards are consistent, they allow teachers to share best practices and to compare what’s working with their counterparts across the country to unlock their students’ full potential. In the same way, they give parents a tool to objectively measure how well their child’s school is doing compared to others.</p>
<p>Those are principals that any conservative should be able to support and that our party would be wise to take note of.</p>
<p>I encourage my fellow Republicans not to cede the fight for high education standards. The implementation of Common Core has not been perfect, but efforts of this scale seldom are. Together we can better ensure that our children are held to expectations that prepare them to meet the challenges of a changing world—and we can reestablish the Republican Party as the party of pragmatic leadership in doing so.</p>
<p><em>Mary Scott Hunter is a member of the Alabama State Board of Education.</em></p>
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</ul>Tue, 27 Jan 2015 19:10:34 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57990 at http://edexcellence.netTennessee embraced Common Core for a reasonhttp://edexcellence.net/articles/tennessee-embraced-common-core-for-a-reason
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Tennessee embraced Common Core for a reason</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-ext-author-name field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Karen Vogelsang</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 22, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"><em>Editor's note: This post <a href="http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/01/08/tennessee-embraced-common-core-reason/21415025/">originally appeared in a slightly different form</a> in </em>The Tennessean.</span></p>
<p>My name is Karen Vogelsang, and I am the 2014–15 Tennessee Teacher of the Year. I am a supporter of the Common Core State Standards, which we have adopted as our own state standards and which are taught in classrooms across the state. I am ill at the thought that these standards could be repealed.</p>
<p>As Tennesseans, <em>we</em> sought Race to the Top funds to make sweeping changes—not only to benefit our state but, more importantly, to benefit our students.</p>
<p>We have data showing that our students are performing at a rate faster than any other state in the nation. <em>We </em>(Tennesseans, not the federal government) made decisions about how the standards would be implemented and how our educators would be trained.</p>
<p>As educators, we have received top-quality training from experts in the fields of math and reading, and Tennessee is the <em>only</em> state that has provided consistent, focused training in the standards from the state’s Department of Education on down. No one has mandated the curriculum or instructional practices teachers use in their classrooms, and districts have selected the materials they want to use to best support their students.</p>
<p><strong>Critical thinking skills prevail</strong></p>
<p>When I began my career as a teacher, my focus was teaching a skill so my students could pass a test. If they did, I figured I was doing a good job. I would ask questions; a student would answer correctly; I replied, “Good job”; and the class moved on.</p>
<p>But what did I really know about what my student understood? The beauty of the standards is that they allow teachers and students the opportunity to delve deeply into concepts. If students truly understand concepts, they’re able to apply that knowledge when needed.</p>
<p>I serve students in a Title I school in urban Memphis; poverty is the norm for many, and education isn’t always the priority at home. Regardless, as a result of the training I’ve received, my classroom today is student-centered.</p>
<p>Students are engaged in discussions, providing justifications for solutions to math problems or citing evidence to support answers to text-dependent questions. I have very high expectations of my students regardless of their background. It’s my job to meet them where they are and guide their growth. The standards have provided that guidance and helped me create an environment where students are using the higher-level thinking skills needed to be college- and career-ready; and I expect them to be college- and career-ready!</p>
<p><strong>Push students’ thinking</strong></p>
<p>High expectations and rigorous standards can make a difference for all students. Angelo entered my third-grade class last year performing below grade level. He dragged in school, unmotivated about anything to do with academics, but it soon became clear that he had enormous potential, especially in math.</p>
<p>When he solved problems, I pushed his thinking by expecting him to justify his solutions. When he saw my excitement, he wanted more—and he got it. He had gaps to fill in language arts, but the process of challenging him has allowed Angelo to emerge as an intrinsically motivated student. Today, he is one of my top students in the fourth grade. He has a long road ahead of him, as many of my students do, but a student-centered environment with high expectations and rigorous standards has made an impact.</p>
<p>We cannot turn back now. Yes, there have been some growing pains; but to reverse course at this point would be a huge mistake. Teachers have received and will continue to receive training, but it takes time to learn and implement a methodology representing the most sweeping reforms in education history.</p>
<p>Districts have selected curricula that will meet the rigorous demands of the standards and provide new opportunities for our students, preparing them for a successful future in Tennessee. We are barely a year away from having our standards aligned to curriculum and assessment.</p>
<p>My hope is that the review process of the standards that Governor Haslam has put in place will be allowed to run its course without any legislative action this session. We have invested countless hours and millions of dollars up to this point. Let’s see this through. If we do, I truly believe that we will continue to see unprecedented growth for our students. They deserve it.</p>
<p><em>Karen Vogelsang, NBCT, is a fourth-grade teacher at Keystone Elementary in Memphis and was named the 2014–15 Tennessee Teacher of the Year.</em></p>
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</ul>Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:25:48 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57974 at http://edexcellence.netDon’t confuse jargon with rigorhttp://edexcellence.net/articles/don%E2%80%99t-confuse-jargon-with-rigor
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Don’t confuse jargon with rigor</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/robert-pondiscio">Robert Pondiscio</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 20, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">At Inside Schools, </span><a href="http://insideschools.org/blog/item/1000931-common-core-leads-to-uncommon-jargon-in-kindergarten" style="line-height: 1.538em;">a website for parents</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> covering New York City schools, </span><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">reporter </span><a href="http://insideschools.org/blog/itemlist/user/40610-lydieraschka" style="line-height: 1.538em;">Lydie Raschka</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> visits a dozen elementary schools and comes away concerned. “[I] saw firsthand how hard teachers are working to meet the new Common Core standards for reading,” she writes. “I also saw precious time wasted, as teachers seemed to confuse harder standards with puzzling language.” A striking example:</span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.25in;"><em>At the teacher's prompting, a kindergartner at PS 251 in Queens tries to define "text evidence" for the rest of the class. "Test ed-i-dence," says the 5-year-old, tripping over the unfamiliar words, "is something when you say the word and show the picture.</em></p>
<p style="margin-left:.25in;"><em>“Text evidence?” What's with this incomprehensible jargon in kindergarten?</em></p>
<p>What indeed.</p>
<p>Raschka is absolutely correct to criticize the use of such arcane language and the practice of asking five-year-olds to toss around phrases like “text evidence” in kindergarten. Where I think she's mistaken is in attributing it to Common Core.</p>
<p>Elementary school English language arts classrooms have long been in the thrall of nonsensical jargon. Children "activate prior knowledge" and make "text-to-text" or "text-to-self" connections in book discussions in the <a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/1d/73/9f/1d739fd3e5197eb535b7de4043983e9c.jpg">argot of "accountable talk"</a> (itself an inscrutable bit of edu-speak). I’ve relentlessly banged the drum for years on the importance of building background knowledge as a critical component of reading comprehension. But I see no point in making second-graders sing about “building schema” like the kids in this video:</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Lbaa8Ovv67Q" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>Why do we do this? I suspect it’s because jargon makes classroom conversation feel more sophisticated than it actually is; it pleases teachers to hear their terms of art parroted back. As a new teacher, I was thrilled the first time a kid said, “I’d like to make a text-to-text connection…” You think, <em>“They’re really paying attention</em>. <em>I’ve taught them something!”</em> Then you learn to focus on the next thing out of their mouths. Too often, it’s thin, banal, or barely relevant.</p>
<p>Doug Lemov, managing director of Uncommon Schools and author of <em>Teach Like a Champion 2.0</em> (<a href="http://edexcellence.net/events/doug-lemov-on-teach-like-a-champion-20">coming to Fordham on January 26</a>) sees no benefit to kids or teachers from using jargon. “Teachers—or any professionals—should generally try to describe to students in plain words what they are doing and why in a way that helps them to be more intentional about what they are doing,” he says. “The job of the teacher, in other words, is to translate—whether it’s the periodic table or the science standards.”</p>
<p>One of the arguments against Common Core is that the standards are too dense and difficult for kids to understand. Do we really expect first graders to “decompose a number leading to a ten?” No. We expect them to be able to get the answer to 12 - 3 by thinking, “Twelve minus two is ten; subtract one more and that makes nine.” No value is added by insisting six-year-olds describe this simple bit of arithmetic as “decomposing numbers.”</p>
<p>The bottom line: The standards aren't written for kids to mimic. They're written for teachers to use in planning curriculum and instruction. It makes me crazy to see standards written on the board in classroom, another foolish orthodoxy that's virtually meaningless to kids.</p>
<p>But wait, don’t the standards demand “academic language?” Indeed, but it’s important to differentiate between academic language and jargon. Teachers often <a href="http://edexcellence.net/articles/it-pays-to-increase-your-word-power">divide words into vocabulary tiers</a> (oops, now <em>I’m</em> doing it). “Tier-one” words are those that kids generally learn early and orally—<em>baby, dog, apple—</em>before even coming to school. “Tier-three” words are specialized terms, unique to particular fields—<em>isotope, integer</em>. The sweet spot that Common Core tries to get at are “Tier-two” words like <em>analysis, evaluate, </em>and <em>negligent</em> that are common to sophisticated adult speech and writing, but which we perceive as ordinary, not specialized language. Tim Shananan <a href="http://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/2014/07/are-you-lactating-and-other-notes-on.html">said it best</a>: “Knowing the 10,000 most frequent words in the language (words common in oral language) doesn’t count for much, but knowing the next 20,000–40,000 most frequent words is what distinguishes the educated from the uneducated.” And no, kids don’t need to know that these are “Tier-two” words.</p>
<p>So what’s going on in the classrooms Inside Schools visited? Call it the “John Wooden effect.” The legendary UCLA basketball coach famously remarked that “sports don’t build character, they reveal it.” The same thing is true about teaching. Common Core is revealing a lot, both good and bad, about what’s happening in our schools.</p>
<p>Using the language of standards—any standards—with five year olds isn't rigorous, mandated by Common Core, or even a good idea. It's just bad teaching.</p>
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</ul>Tue, 20 Jan 2015 21:06:40 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57955 at http://edexcellence.netCarmen Fariña's war on evidencehttp://edexcellence.net/articles/carmen-fari%C3%B1as-war-on-evidence
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Carmen Fariña&#039;s war on evidence</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/robert-pondiscio">Robert Pondiscio</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 15, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><em>Editor's note: This post originally appeared in a slightly different form in <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/robert-pondiscio-carmen-fari-article-1.2077793">the </a></em><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/robert-pondiscio-carmen-fari-article-1.2077793">Daily News</a><em> and </em><a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2015/eon0114rp.html">City Journal</a>.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Last week, New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña demanded that dozens of New York City’s lowest-performing schools </span><a href="http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2015/01/09/in-struggling-schools-farina-looks-to-shape-how-students-read-and-write/#.VLKnS6WOmfQ" style="line-height: 1.538em;">adopt and implement</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> a widely criticized literacy curriculum with which she has long been associated. It was the most recent of a growing list of decisions she has made while running the nation’s largest school system that seem to be based not on empirical evidence, but on the chancellor’s personal preference.</span></p>
<p>In November, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/nyregion/de-blasio-unveils-new-plans-for-troubled-schools-in-new-york.html">city unveiled</a> its School Renewal Program, a $150 million plan to turn ninety-four chronically low-performing schools into “community schools.” A <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dycd/downloads/pdf/concept_papers/Community_Schools_Concept_Paper11-18-14_Final.pdf">concept paper</a> inviting community-based organizations to partner with the New York City Department of Education (DOE) noted the approach “is based on a growing body of evidence” showing that “an integrated focus” on academics, health and social services, and other community supports are “critical to improving student success.”</p>
<p>What growing body of evidence? The paper didn’t say—not even in a footnote. Perhaps because the evidence is scant to nonexistent. New York’s initiative is modeled on a similar program in Cincinnati, but as a 2013 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/nyregion/candidates-see-cincinnati-as-model-for-new-york-schools.html?pagewanted=all">analysis by the <em>New York Times</em></a> noted, “what has gone largely unsaid is that many of Cincinnati’s community schools are still in dire academic straits despite millions of dollars in investment and years of reform efforts."</p>
<p>It gets worse. Last week, <em>Chalkbeat</em>’s <a href="http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2015/01/09/in-struggling-schools-farina-looks-to-shape-how-students-read-and-write/#.VLL756WOmfQ">Patrick Wall reported</a> that elementary and middle school principals in Renewal schools have been ordered to use a literacy program created by <a href="http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/04/24/how-lucy-calkins-literacy-guru-and-farina-ally-is-fighting-to-define-common-core-teaching/#.VKrKRFd4rdg">Lucy Calkins</a>, founder of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project—and to send their “best and brightest” teachers for training there. According to Wall, <span style="line-height: 20.0063037872314px;">Fariña adviser and former Teachers College consultant </span><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Laura Kotch told the principals, “Those are the non-negotiables we’re starting with in terms of instruction.”</span></p>
<p>This “non-negotiable” directly contradicts the DOE’s own guidance. In 2013, as Gotham geared up to implement Common Core, the <a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/5CC378E0-7EE7-4A11-A55B-EDD26552EE16/0/CommonCoreCurriculumSupports0528_v11.pdf">department recommended several literacy curricula</a>, including Pearson’s <em>ReadyGen</em>, Core Knowledge Language Arts, and Expeditionary Learning. The latter two had already been selected by the New York State Department of Education (NYSED), and made available for free via the state’s EngageNY website. Fariña’s favored Teachers College Reading and Writing didn’t make the cut—a conspicuous omission given the program’s dominance in New York City elementary and middle schools since the early days of the Bloomberg/Klein era. As both a superintendent and later deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, Fariña advocated for use the program.</p>
<p>Calkins’s relationship with Fariña goes back decades. Calkins wrote the forward to <em>A School Leader’s Guide to Excellence</em>, a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/School-Leaders-Guide-Excellence-Collaborating/dp/0325011389">2008 book</a> penned by Kotch and Fariña (who has called Calkins her mentor). Since becoming chancellor, Farina has made no secret of her loyalty to her mentor’s notions about reading; she reportedly deployed them to good effect as the principal of P.S. 6, in the heart of Manhattan’s affluent Upper East Side. Klein meanwhile gradually soured on Calkins’s model, growing increasingly concerned it wasn’t helping low-income kids learn to read with comprehension. In 2007, he authorized a DOE pilot of E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum in ten low-income schools. A subsequent three-year study <a href="http://www.coreknowledge.org/mimik/mimik_uploads/documents/712/CK%20Early%20Literacy%20Pilot%203%2012%2012.pdf">showed clear advantages</a> for Core Knowledge over demographically matched comparison schools on nearly all literacy measures among low-SES learners (full disclosure: I worked for the Core Knowledge Foundation from 2008–2012).</p>
<p>Once Mayor Bill de Blasio chose Farina as chancellor, Calkins’s brand of literacy instruction was poised for comeback. She quickly brought Calkins’s group in to lead a citywide Common Core literacy training despite complaints that her approach was <a href="http://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/common-core-watch/2012/misdirection-and-self-interest-how-Heinemann-and-Lucy-Calkins-are-rewriting-the-Common-Core.html">fundamentally at odds</a> with the new standards—and despite the tantalizing results of the Core Knowledge study. That prompted Dan Willingham, a University of Virginia cognitive scientist, <a href="http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2014/06/30/literacy_new_york_city_carmen_farina_1037.html">to observe</a>, “Rarely does a policymaker as much as say, ‘Screw the data, I'm doing what I want.’”</p>
<p>Doing what she wants seems to be Fariña’s default setting. In October, she <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/story/chancellor-shakes-school-superintendents/">announced that she was replacing</a> fifteen of the city’s forty-two school superintendents. "To be a successful superintendent, you need extensive experience as an instructional leader and a proven record of success," she said at the time. Yet the <em>New York Post</em> <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/10/23/farinas-new-superintendents-led-low-grade-schools/">pointed out</a> that seven of the chancellor’s new supes had led schools that received poor ratings on the city’s own school progress report cards or scored below city averages on state exams.</p>
<p>Fariña’s tendency to be untroubled by data also extends to her public comments. In November, she suggested that some charter schools push kids out ahead of state tests to boost their test scores. The head of the New York City Charter Center, James Merriman, noted that Fariña could easily authorize release of enrollment and discharge data, which would prove or disprove the allegation. Merriman <a href="http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/11/21/charter-ceo-farina-has-obligation-to-release-enrollment-data-after-push-out-claims/#.VLMKMaWOmfQ">challenged the chancellor</a> “to instruct the DOE to do so promptly.” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew <a href="http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/11/21/mulgrew-joins-charter-leaders-calls-for-city-to-release-student-discharge-data/#.VLaOfqWOmfQ">also called for the data</a> to be released. It never happened, and Fariña neither withdrew nor walked back the comment.</p>
<p>It has become a given that the de Blasio administration’s education policy is ideologically driven. To be sure, no one will mistake New York’s mayor for a fan of charters, choice, and reform, but it’s hard to paint the mayor himself as data-averse. As a city councilman and public advocate, de Blasio advocated <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/52074743/Public-Advocate-de-Blasio-Report-with-ACS-on-Death-of-Marchella-Pierce">better data collection and analysis</a> from the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). As mayor, he chose for his police chief Bill Bratton, a man whose successful, data-driven approach to policing has been emulated nationwide. By contrast, Fariña’s relationship with data occasionally seems to border on contempt. Asked about the poor showing of Cincinnati’s vaunted community schools, Fariña <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/12/8557574/buery-farintildea-defend-community-schools-academics">called their results</a> "pretty good"—a statement that’s not only hard to support with evidence, but also suggests a surprising lack of urgency about academic achievement in some of the city’s most hard-pressed schools.</p>
<p>Nowhere is Fariña’s tendency to favor pet programs more in evidence than in her insistence on pushing balanced literacy on the city’s new community schools—and signaling to the rest of the city’s schools her obvious preference for Calkins’s workshop model. Fariña has dismissed the Core Knowledge pilot study as too small. Fair enough. But someone charged with overseeing the education of 1.1 million children might at least be <em>curious</em> about such intriguing results and want to know more. Fariña has shown no interest in further study.</p>
<p>She likes what she likes.</p>
<p>“Calkins’s program flies in the face of everything we know about evidence-based reading instruction,” notes Susan B. Neuman, a professor of early childhood and literacy education at New York University. “What is particularly striking is that, given its wide reach in the city, we have seen no studies of any kind reported on its effects.” Neuman, the editor of the International Reading Association’s flagship <em>Reading Research Journal</em> is also unaware of any peer-reviewed article demonstrating the positive effects of Fariña’s favored form of reading instruction. “Rather,” she notes, “there is countervailing evidence that this model doesn't work.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, New York City is paying Teachers College $500,000 for Calkins’s writing materials, which <em>Chalkbeat</em> reports will be used by sixty-five Renewal schools. Despite the lack of evidence of its effectiveness, Calkins &amp; Co. billed nearly $6 million dollars to train teachers in its methods from July 2010 to June 2011 alone, <a href="http://hechingerreport.org/content/millions-spent-on-improving-teachers-but-little-done-to-make-sure-its-working_8696/">according to the Hechinger Report</a>. It is stunning that this relationship has not come under closer scrutiny—or that no one has pushed this chancellor explain how she makes decisions that materially affect the education and life chances of so many children.<br /><br />There’s an absence of evidence in her decision making. And what evidence there is speaks to preference, ideology, and rewarding old friends—not effectiveness.</p>
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</ul>Thu, 15 Jan 2015 15:00:17 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57946 at http://edexcellence.netStay the course or turn the page?http://edexcellence.net/articles/stay-the-course-or-turn-the-page
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Stay the course or turn the page?</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/michael-j-petrilli">Michael J. Petrilli</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 14, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><em>Editor's note: This post <a href="http://www.regblog.org/2015/01/14/petrilli-ccss-course-page/">originally appeared in a slightly different form</a> at </em>RegBlog.</p>
<p>Most public policy issues fit roughly into one of three categories. The first contains fundamental matters of principle—what we generally call “social issues,” such as abortion, gay marriage, and gun rights. The second bucket includes topics that are more technical in nature: how to make various systems or sectors work better. Here we might put nuts-and-bolts issues like infrastructure or procurement reform. The third category is for issues that have elements of the first two, both fundamental matters of principle <em>and</em> technocratic questions of implementation. Health care reform certainly belongs there.</p>
<p>Category three is also where education reform in general, and Common Core in particular, belongs. There are clear matters of principle: Should all American children have equal access to challenging coursework? Do states have the right, perhaps even the responsibility, to set standards for their public schools, or should all such control remain with local school boards, educators, or parents? But technical questions are important too: Are the standards high enough? Are the tests properly aligned with them—and also psychometrically valid and reliable? Who is responsible for helping schools develop the capacity to teach to the new expectations? How should we respond to implementation struggles, as with the current confusion around some math topics?</p>
<p>This dual nature of Common Core as an educational and political issue is important to keep in mind over the coming months as state lawmakers <a href="http://www.ccrslegislation.info/legislation-by-year/2015">debate</a> whether to “stay the course” or “turn the page,” five years after they first <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/common-core-state-standards.aspx">adopted</a> the standards. It also explains why most supporters and opponents of the Common Core appear to be talking past one another.</p>
<p>Many opponents are against the standards for fundamental ideological reasons. Some conservatives <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/william-j-bennett-the-conservative-case-for-common-core-1410390435">resent</a> the role that the federal government played in encouraging states to adopt the Common Core (first through incentives in the <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/index.html">Race to the Top</a> program, then through waivers to the <a href="http://www.ed.gov/esea">Elementary and Secondary Education Act</a> <a href="http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/obama-administration-sets-high-bar-flexibility-no-child-left-behind-order-advanc">conditioned</a> on state adoption of “college and career ready” standards). Libertarians also <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2014/06/25/the-populist-uprising-against-common-cor">oppose</a> the very idea of government-set academic standards, even if it is the states that set them. They believe that nobody should second guess the decisions made by parents, teachers, and local communities when it comes to the education of their children.</p>
<p>On the other side of the argument are supporters, also including many bona fide conservatives, who want to give this reform time to work. Many of us <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/05/21/common-core-standards-education-column/9298343/">acknowledge</a> that the standards are not perfect (no standards ever are), and thus are willing to contemplate refinements and improvements.</p>
<p>But we don’t want to pull the rug out from under educators—particularly after they have put so much effort into implementing the standards in their classrooms—just as new next-generation, Common Core-aligned assessments are <a href="http://www.aasa.org/content.aspx?id=25928">hitting</a> the ground. To us, it seems like an irresponsible, not-very-conservative risk to repeal the standards in the hope that states might be able to come up with something better. Especially because, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/common-core-state-standards-arent-so-easy-to-replace/2014/12/24/e285d72c-89f1-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html">to date</a>, the evidence is that the states will not find something better. So we <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/john_wilson_unleashed/2013/03/common_core_mend_it_dont_end_it.html">advance</a> a “mend it, don’t end it” position, consistent with the view that the Common Core idea is fundamentally sound, but that implementation could always be stronger.</p>
<p>This duality makes life difficult for politicians, especially Republicans who want to find a middle ground between opponents (in their Tea Party base) and supporters (particularly business leaders in the GOP establishment). For those who <a href="http://www.iwf.org/blog/2795935/">oppose</a> the Common Core on fundamental principle, there is no middle ground. They will not accept improvements to the standards, nor will they accept replacements that look anything like the Common Core. They are fighting a culture war and will not accept a negotiated truce. Which means, unfortunately, that political leaders are going to have to choose sides: Is it all about the base, or is standing up for higher standards worth the trouble?</p>
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</ul>Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:21:44 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57932 at http://edexcellence.netWhen the standard algorithm is the only algorithm taughthttp://edexcellence.net/articles/when-the-standard-algorithm-is-the-only-algorithm-taught
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>When the standard algorithm is the only algorithm taught</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-ext-author-name field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Jason Zimba</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 09, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><em>Editor's note: This post <a href="http://commoncoretools.me/2015/01/08/when-the-standard-algorithm-is-the-only-algorithm-taught/">originally appeared in a slightly different form</a> on the</em> Tools for the Common Core Standards <em>blog.</em></p>
<p>Standards shouldn’t dictate curriculum or pedagogy. But there has been some <a href="http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2014/11/12/whos-say-teachers-cant-modify-common-core-no-one" target="_blank" title="BarryGarelick">criticism</a> recently that the implementation of the Common Core State Standards may be effectively forcing a particular pedagogy on teachers. Even if that isn’t happening, one can still be concerned if everybody’s pedagogical interpretation of the standards turns out to be exactly the same. Fortunately, one can already see different approaches in various post-CCSS curricular efforts. And looking to the future, the revisions I’m aware of that are underway to existing programs aren’t likely to erase those programs’ mutual pedagogical differences, either.</p>
<p>Of course, standards do have to have meaningful implications for curriculum, or else they aren’t standards at all. The <a href="http://achievethecore.org/page/783/instructional-materials-evaluation-tool-imet" target="_blank" title="IMET">Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool (IMET)</a> is a rubric that helps educators judge high-level alignment of comprehensive instructional materials to the standards. Some states and districts have used the IMET to inform their curriculum evaluations, and it would help if more states and districts did the same.</p>
<p>The criticism that I referred to earlier comes from math educator Barry Garelick, who has written <a href="http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2014/08/06/common-sense-approach-common-core-math-standards">a series of blog posts</a> that aims to sketch a picture of good, traditional pedagogy consistent with the Common Core. The concrete proposals in his series are a welcome addition to the conversation math educators are having about implementing the standards. Reading these posts led me to consider the following question:</p>
<p><em>If the only computation algorithm we teach is the standard algorithm, then can we still say we are following the standards?</em></p>
<p>Provided the standards as a whole are being met, I would say that the answer to this question is yes. The basic reason for this is that the standard algorithm is “based on place value [and] properties of operations.” That means it qualifies. In short, the Common Core requires the standard algorithm; additional algorithms aren’t named, and they aren’t required.</p>
<p>Additional mathematics, however, is required. <a href="http://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol26/iss1/10/" target="_blank">Consistent with high-performing countries</a>, the elementary grades’ standards also require algebraic thinking, including an understanding of the properties of operations and some use of this understanding of mathematics to make sense of problems and do mental mathematics.</p>
<p>The section of the standards that has generated the most public discussion is probably the progression leading to fluency with the standard algorithms for addition and subtraction. So in a little more detail (but still highly simplified!), the <a href="http://commoncoretools.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/TeachingASingleAlgorithm-2014-01-07-Table.pdf">accompanying table</a> sketches a picture of how one might envision a progression in the early grades with the property that the only algorithm being taught is the standard algorithm.</p>
<p>The approach sketched in the table is something I could imagine trying if I were left to myself as an elementary teacher. There are certainly those who would do it differently! But the ability to teach differently under the standards is exactly my point today. I drew this sketch to indicate one possible picture that is consistent with the standards—not to argue against other pictures that are also consistent with the standards.</p>
<p>Whatever one thinks of the details in the table, I would think that, if the culminating standard in grade four is realistically to be met, one likely wants to introduce the standard algorithm pretty early in the addition-and-subtraction progression.</p>
<p>Writing about algorithms is very difficult. I ask for the reader’s patience, not only because passions run high on this subject, but also because the topic itself is bedeviled with subtleties and apparent contradictions. For example, consider that even the teaching of a mechanical algorithm still has to look “conceptual” at times—or else it isn’t actually teaching. Even the traditional textbook that Garelick points to as a model attends to concepts briefly, after introducing the algorithm itself:</p>
<p align="center"><img height="82" width="300" class="media-element file-default" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/zimba.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p align="center" style="margin-left:3.75pt;"><em>Brownell et al., 1955</em></p>
<p>This screenshot of a fifties-era textbook is as old-school as it gets, yet somebody on the Internet could probably turn it into a viral Common-Core scare if they wanted to. What I would conclude from this example is that it might prove difficult for the average person even to decide how many algorithms are being presented in a given textbook.</p>
<p>Standards can’t settle every disagreement—nor should they. As this discussion of just a single slice of the math curriculum illustrates, teachers and curriculum authors following the standards still may, and still must, make an enormous range of decisions.</p>
<p>This isn’t to say that the standards are consistent with every conceivable pedagogy. It is likely that some pedagogies just don’t do the job we need them to do. The conflict of such outliers with CCSS isn’t best revealed by closely reading any individual standard; it arises instead from the more general fact that CCSS sets an expectation of a college- and career-ready level of achievement. At one extreme, this challenges pedagogies that neglect the key math concepts that are essential foundations for algebra and higher mathematics. On the other hand, routinely delaying skill development until a fully mature understanding of concepts develops <a href="https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/devlin_09_07.html" target="_blank">is also a problem</a> because it slows the pace of learning below the level that the college- and career-ready endpoint imposes on even the elementary years. Sometimes these two extremes are described using the labels of political ideology, but I have declined to use these shorthand labels. That’s because I believe that achievement, not ideology, ought to decide questions of pedagogy in mathematics.</p>
<p><em>Jason Zimba was a member of the writing team for the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and is a founding partner of Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit organization.</em></p>
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</ul>Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:08:07 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57907 at http://edexcellence.net2015: The year of curriculum-based reform?http://edexcellence.net/articles/2015-the-year-of-curriculum-based-reform
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>2015: The year of curriculum-based reform?</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/robert-pondiscio">Robert Pondiscio</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 07, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p style="text-align: right;"><img src="http://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/15958303240_4e1f9f7158_k.jpg" style="line-height: 1.538em; width: 100%;" /></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">You may have missed it over the holidays, but </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/12/29/371918272/the-man-behind-common-core-math" style="line-height: 1.538em;">NPR ran a fascinating profile</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> of Jason Zimba, one of the primary architects of the Common Core math standards. The piece, by the </span><em style="line-height: 1.538em;">Hechinger Report</em><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">’s Sarah Garland, an exceptionally thoughtful education reporter, traces Zimba’s career from Rhodes scholar and David Coleman’s business partner to “obscure physics professor at Bennington College” and unlikely standards bearer for the math standards that he had so much to do with creating.</span></p>
<p>Garland makes much of the fact that Zimba spends Saturday mornings tutoring his two young daughters in math. We’re told he feels the math his kids are getting at their local Manhattan public school is subpar, and that’s even <em>after</em> the school began implementing Common Core. “Zimba, a mathematician by training, is not just any disgruntled parent,” Garland notes. “He's one of the guys who wrote the Common Core.”</p>
<p>Some will surely see irony in Zimba feeling compelled to supplement what his kids learn in school with breakfast-table math lessons—more schadenfreude for Common Core critics—but there is no irony. As my Fordham colleague Kathleen Porter-Magee noted in <a href="http://edexcellence.net/articles/the-missing-link-between-standards-and-instruction">another great piece you might have missed</a> in recent days, even the best standards don’t help teachers ensure that all students master the content and skills set forth in those standards. That’s what a good <em>curriculum</em> does—a point pressed by Zimba in the NPR segment. "I used to think if you got the assessments right, it would virtually be enough,” he tells Garland. “Now I think it's curriculum.”</p>
<p>This insight is no surprise to those of us who have <a href="http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/10/15/curriculum-more-reform-for-less-money/">long championed curriculum</a> and rich academic content as ed reform’s great un-pulled lever—or who support Common Core simply because it puts curriculum onto the reform agenda. Happily, the ranks are growing of those who recognize that curricular content and quality are at least as important to student learning as teacher quality, accountability, and school choice. At Fordham’s <a href="http://edexcellence.net/events/education-for-upward-mobility">upward mobility conference</a> in Washington, D.C. last month, Dacia Toll, who heads the highly-regarded Achievement First charter school network, was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHmgPddgQn0">admirably candid</a> in noting her own conversion to content. Common Core testing in her New York schools, she noted, has been “one hell of a wake-up call.”</p>
<p>“The achievement gap,” she said, turned out to be “even wider than we thought it was. Our schools, which were high-achieving under the old regime, are no longer, and it has really sent us back to the drawing board….The more you look at the English language arts gap, the more you come back to background knowledge and vocabulary.” Translation: Curriculum and content matter—and for no one more than poor kids who get too little of that knowledge and vocabulary at home.</p>
<p>One of the bigger mistakes Toll made as a practitioner, she acknowledged, was cutting back on science and history to make more time for reading. It just didn’t work. So for the last two years, Achievement First has refocused on building knowledge in the service of stronger language proficiency. “It’s the only thing that moves the needle,” Toll declared, “and it moves really slowly.”</p>
<p>Achievement First isn’t the only closely watched CMO that’s getting serious about curriculum, content, and what kids learn. Nearly half of KIPP's schools have adopted Eureka Math, a CCSS-based math curriculum. And KIPP is working with Common Core, Inc., the non-profit that developed Eureka, to create a new K–8 English curriculum for KIPP schools that is designed to build student knowledge systematically through the use of high quality works of literature, nonfiction, and informational text. This objective is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKSIRXa6OLk">required by the standards</a>, but few English curricula actually attempt it. "Our English curriculum will be as relentless in building knowledge as it will be in reaching each and every standard in the CCSS," Common Core's Lynne Munson promises. An especially encouraging development: Common Core is writing the curriculum for KIPP, but Munson says that her organization (which is not affiliated with the Common Core State Standards initiative, despite its name) will publish it, making it available for use to any school or district.</p>
<p>In short, curriculum’s day as the neglected stepchild of education reform seems to be coming to an end. More and more of the country’s savviest practitioners are beginning to realize that structural reform is one important lever, but <em>instructional</em> reform is equally powerful—and instructional reform isn’t just about the instructors. It’s at least as much about the content they impart to their young charges.</p>
<p>This is an awakening too long in coming. The entire edifice of education reform has forever treated content and curriculum as far less consequential than teacher quality, testing, charters, and choice. That was a whopping error. Simple common sense would dictate that the effectiveness of different teachers or schools should have as least as much to do with differences in what is being taught as who is doing the teaching, or under whose roof and which assessment regime.</p>
<p>As Zimba acknowledges, and the experience of KIPP and Achievement First demonstrates, wise decision making on curriculum and content is where the battle to attain rigorous standards will be won or lost.</p>
<p>The NPR piece drove home the point that standards themselves can only accomplish so much: “Even as Zimba and his colleagues defend the standards against cries of federal overreach,” Garland wrote, “they are helpless when it comes to making sure textbook publishers, test-makers, superintendents, principals and teachers interpret the standards in ways that will actually improve American public education.”</p>
<p>As Kathleen noted, many other countries address this problem by dictating, via national curricula, the content taught in schools to a degree that would make most Americans uncomfortable. “Given our country’s unique mixture of democratic values, diverse populations, and sheer size,” she wrote, “this use of standards has been a wise approach to bridging these two needs.” I agree. But the fact of local control of schooling is what puts the onus squarely on districts and schools to be critical consumers of curriculum. Standards do not compel them to choose well or wisely what their teachers actually use in the classroom.</p>
<p>Fortunately, we can profit from the experience of others. “It may seem esoteric to talk about background knowledge and vocabulary,” Dacia Toll noted at the Fordham symposium. “But I have become religious on these questions.”</p>
<p>May she be the first of many such converts. If so, 2015 may be the year of curriculum-based reform. Happy New Year!</p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 13.8420000076294px; text-align: right;">photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/70626035@N00/15958303240/in/photolist-qjbtzj-qAw5m1-pEUwHb-qBJaMa-pFa8De-qbnSWT-qkcEC1-qpDrK4-qC42Kv-qCBYJZ-qkZJYy-qzuaLU-qF9hzC-qzuawq-qBmoui-qz3DuC-pF4JeQ-qDthGe-qCpZ7B-qkMBfc-pAX5KB-qA9Ruf-pE9bqf-qBBsL4-qA4Sbq-qCm5fk-qk3FEP-qm9qsh-qCDgKC-qmhV8B-qCGZCc-qmhSNX-qmgsBV-pFzCyF-qzfZNy-qiSnn3-qyiU8w-qjSatr-qzZhWN-qBDEdE-qkiudx-qChjhd-qChjBb-qfxhoU-qnoe9o-qm7xLa-qkD2Sz-qmuVAM-qA3dCG-qkUwcx">j</a></span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/70626035@N00/15958303240/in/photolist-qjbtzj-qAw5m1-pEUwHb-qBJaMa-pFa8De-qbnSWT-qkcEC1-qpDrK4-qC42Kv-qCBYJZ-qkZJYy-qzuaLU-qF9hzC-qzuawq-qBmoui-qz3DuC-pF4JeQ-qDthGe-qCpZ7B-qkMBfc-pAX5KB-qA9Ruf-pE9bqf-qBBsL4-qA4Sbq-qCm5fk-qk3FEP-qm9qsh-qCDgKC-qmhV8B-qCGZCc-qmhSNX-qmgsBV-pFzCyF-qzfZNy-qiSnn3-qyiU8w-qjSatr-qzZhWN-qBDEdE-qkiudx-qChjhd-qChjBb-qfxhoU-qnoe9o-qm7xLa-qkD2Sz-qmuVAM-qA3dCG-qkUwcx"><font size="1"><span style="line-height: 13.8420000076294px;">acinta lluch valero</span></font></a><span style="font-size: 9px; line-height: 13.8420000076294px; text-align: right;"> via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a></span></p>
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</ul>Wed, 07 Jan 2015 20:36:57 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57893 at http://edexcellence.netCommon Core State Standards aren't so easy to replacehttp://edexcellence.net/articles/common-core-state-standards-arent-so-easy-to-replace
<div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h1>Common Core State Standards aren&#039;t so easy to replace</h1></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-related-staff field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/michael-j-petrilli">Michael J. Petrilli</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/about-us/fordham-staff/michael-brickman.html">Michael Brickman</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">January 05, 2015</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><em>Editor's note: This post was originally published in a slightly different form as</em> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/common-core-state-standards-arent-so-easy-to-replace/2014/12/24/e285d72c-89f1-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html"><em>an op-ed in the</em> Washington Post</a>. <em>It was subsequently republished in the</em> <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/Opinion/ci_27209892/Common-Cores-test-for-states">Denver Post</a>, <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/column-common-core-tests-states-not-just-students/2211578">Tampa Bay Times</a>, <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/1991142-155/washington-post-op-ed-common-cores-test">Salt Lake Tribune</a>, <a href="http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-commentary/common-cores-test-for-states-20150104/">Tampa Tribune</a>, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20150105_Rhetoric_vs__reality_on_education_standards.html">Philadelphia Inquirer</a>, <a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com/opinion/national-and-world-commentary/michael-j-petrilli-and-michael-brickman-common-cores-test-for-states_18891410">Commercial Appeal</a>, <a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20141228/PC1002/141229516/1021/some-states-face-defining-tests">Post and Courier</a>, <a href="http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/12/replace_the_common_core_states_should_tread_carefully_commentary.html">Post-Standard</a>, <a href="http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/12/26/3559278_common-cores-test-for-states.html?sp=/99/447/&amp;rh=1">News Tribune</a>, <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/12/28/common-cores-test-states/20973517/">News Journal</a>, <em>and</em> <a href="http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/michael-j-petrilli-and-michael-brickman-common-core-s-test/article_3bc91a42-d640-59ef-b552-0b03cdb82ed0.html">Capital Times</a>.</p>
<p>In November, former Florida Governor <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/jeb-bush-offers-nuanced-defense-of-common-core-education-standards/2014/11/20/b77330f4-70cc-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html">Jeb Bush suggested</a> to hundreds of lawmakers and education reformers gathered for his foundation’s annual summit that “the rigor of the Common Core State Standards must be the new minimum.” Furthermore, <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/11/20/365420235/jeb-bush-stands-firm-on-common-core-but-softens-tone">he said</a>, to “those states choosing a path other than Common Core, I say this: That’s fine. Except you should be aiming even higher and be bolder and raise standards and ask more of our students and the system.” Several Republican politicians, including Louisiana Senator (and gubernatorial hopeful) <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/12/david_vitter_pursues_similar_l.html">David Vitter</a> and Mississippi Lieutenant Governor <a href="http://msbusiness.com/blog/2014/12/02/tate-reeves-wants-common-core-scrapped/">Tate Reeves</a>, promptly took up his suggestion, calling on their states to replace the Common Core with standards that are even more challenging.</p>
<p>In theory, this position is exactly right. Academic standards are the province of the states; it’s within their rights to have their own standards if that’s what their leaders and residents want. Furthermore, though there are benefits to having common standards in terms of cost savings (for taxpayers) and continuity (for students who move across state lines, including the children of military families), most of Common Core’s upside stems from its rigor, not its sameness.</p>
<p>But if our fellow Republicans move to embrace standards that are even higher than Common Core, they’d better have a realistic plan for putting them in place. Otherwise, such calls will be viewed as political posturing and pandering at the expense of our children. Unfortunately, states that have thus far attempted this effort—replacing Common Core with something even stronger—have found that it is quite difficult to achieve.</p>
<p>For all the hoopla, just a handful of states have proposed significant changes to Common Core, and none of them has written higher standards. <a href="http://www.thestate.com/2014/12/01/3847156_educators-reworked-sc-standards.html?rh=1">South Carolina’s new draft standards</a> have been <a href="http://www.thestate.com/2015/01/05/3909643/editorial-sc-shouldnt-replace.html?sp=/99/168/">widely panned</a>, and they will probably need to go back to the drawing board. <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/editorials/tulsa-world-editorial-common-core-s-rejection-is-the-mistake/article_8b8c65c8-b6db-52fd-8b10-e4a165bdb78d.html">Oklahoma</a> passed a bill that requires Common Core to be replaced with the lower standards that were being used in the state while yet another set of standards is written—forcing educators to deal with three sets of standards in as many years. In <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2014/04/experts_pick_apart_indiana_standards_set_to_replace_common_core.html">Indiana</a>, modifications to Common Core were met with skepticism from supporters and detractors alike (though Republican Governor Mike Pence and his team deserve credit for attempting to reach compromise on the standards and help districts with follow-through). And <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-missouri-republicans-peddle-the-big-common-core-lie/article_0885c16d-2c0d-5248-ab7c-2eebd49d2b67.html">Missouri</a>, which passed a bill to make changes to the standards, seems unlikely to please both those who want high standards and those who value standards only in terms of how different they are from Common Core.</p>
<p>The basic problem is that it’s impossible to draft standards that prepare students for college and career readiness and that look nothing like Common Core. That’s because Common Core, though not perfect, represents a good-faith effort to incorporate the current evidence of what students need to know and do to succeed in credit-bearing courses in college or to land a good-paying job—and the milestones younger students need to pass to reach those goals. That’s why states that are sincere about wanting to aim higher would be smart to start with Common Core as a base for additions or modifications—as Florida did when it <a href="http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/florida-approves-revisions-to-common-core-education-standards.html">added calculus</a> standards several years ago.</p>
<p>Starting from scratch, on the other hand, pulls the rug out from under educators who have spent almost five years implementing Common Core in their classrooms. “You just get frustrated and tired with trying to appease people who really have no idea what’s going on with you day to day,” <a href="http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2014/12/06/common-core-retreat-blunt-mississippi-progress/20034517/">one kindergarten teacher told</a> Mississippi’s <em>Clarion-Ledger</em>. “It’s just really mind-blowing that this is something they’re considering doing at this point.” Teachers are all too familiar with the fad du jour. Policymakers promised them that Common Core would be different, that it would have staying power. Teachers are right to be angry at those broken promises, especially because so much of the backlash to Common Core has little to do with the standards themselves.</p>
<p>So raise standards beyond Common Core? Sure—but you’d better make sure it’s not all talk and no action.</p>
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</ul>Mon, 05 Jan 2015 15:41:20 +0000kmahnken@edexcellence.net57878 at http://edexcellence.net